Breaking news today as SIE has confirmed they are shutting down Firewalk Studios, the team that released the sci-fi hero shooter Concord for PS5 and PC. Sony also confirmed that they shutdown Neon Koi, their first mobile studio they ever acquired. And a team that never even got to release their first game.
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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, we have some breaking news here for PlayStation Studios.
00:07We have two studio closures, which is never fun news to go over, but something that we
00:13thought was a very real possibility as Firewalk Studios, they're shutting down and also Neon
00:18Koi as well, which may be not as obvious, but that would probably add up with what we've
00:23seen from that studio, which is quite frankly, nothing.
00:27So confirmed over on the PlayStation blog, or rather the SIE blog, I should say, an update
00:31from PlayStation Studios.
00:33So for Neon Koi, they say, and I quote here, while mobile games remain a priority growth
00:37area for the studio business, we are in the very early stage of our mobile efforts.
00:42To achieve success in this area, we need to concentrate on titles that are in line with
00:46PlayStation Studios pedigree and have the potential to reach players more globally.
00:51With this refocused approach, Neon Koi will close and its mobile action game will not
00:56be moving forward.
00:57I want to express my gratitude to everyone at Neon Koi for their hard work and endless
01:01passion to innovate.
01:03Now as for Firewalk, of course, the studio behind Concord, they say, and I quote here,
01:08after much thought, we've determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the
01:11game and close the studio.
01:13I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit, and dedication.
01:18The PVP first-person shooter genre is a competitive space that's continuously evolving, and unfortunately,
01:23we did not hit our targets with this title.
01:25We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities
01:30to deliver future growth in this area.
01:33Perhaps the most noteworthy line there, given that this is not going to slow down the company
01:37at all when it comes to developing and making more live service titles, and this is sort
01:42of what we've discussed many times over, which is the company's just, this isn't going to
01:48dissuade them per se, but it is going to be some hard lessons learned for this genre that
01:54Sony is underrepresented in.
01:56It's still something where I'm not into these games, a lot of you watching these videos
02:00might not be into these games, but if I were a very big Sony shareholder, I'd want the
02:04company to be investing in this area.
02:06So it's not going to stop them per se, but they are, you know, going down this long,
02:12hard road of learning just how difficult this stuff is, because so many things can be said
02:15about what went wrong with Concord.
02:18And so, you know, we already saw a late 2023 portfolio culling, and that had some cancellations
02:24in there.
02:25Now we've got this, which the Neon Koi game was also probably going to have some element
02:30of, you know, live service monetization and things like that.
02:33We still don't really know at all what that game was going to be, which if I'll be honest,
02:37I think that's maybe the more fascinating thing to look at here, because with Concord
02:41and Firewalk, right, I mean, again, many things can be said.
02:44We've talked about the studio in this game so many times, and nothing has really changed
02:48here outside of just now we finally have the end result, which is Firewalk is being shut
02:54out.
02:55And that's not the result I would have wanted.
02:57You know, if we dial back to like the conversation me and John had on ClickR3, it was a matter
03:02of like, okay, so bringing back Concord is not really going to be a good idea, given
03:08that even if you do make it free to play, that's not going to change anything.
03:11It looks like a completely competent first-person shooter that has sci-fi elements and, you
03:17know, asymmetric gameplay, and it, you know, Pound for Pound was probably a very sort of
03:22bog-standard game that was fine, just in this kind of environment, that's not good
03:27enough.
03:28And if it's being labeled as derivative, that's another problem, and the game just had a certain
03:33image that there was no way it was going to get over it.
03:35At a certain point, it was just insurmountable with the kind of coverage and, you know, image
03:41the game had, right?
03:42So having said that, bringing it back free to play, whether it's through Plus or straight
03:47up free to play, like, it's just not going to happen.
03:50Unrealistic.
03:51There's really, I think, no path there, and the company clearly came to the same conclusion.
03:56On the flip side, though, I mean, there's still ways to sort of salvage that, which
04:00is, are you going to really bankroll the game in a manner where you're going to relabel
04:03it and completely redo assets, like, that's maybe the most unrealistic option, but maybe
04:10one that they did consider.
04:11The other aspect is what you do with all that talent at Firewalk, the studio that you acquired
04:16for this game over a very long-term period where, you know, we saw the development process,
04:21them working with Probably Monsters.
04:22They were also an early investor in the game as well, same with some co-founders and I
04:25think some venture capitalists, because, again, the whole $400 million number thing is still
04:30out there.
04:31That's not confirmed, and there's still many stakeholders that were involved in making
04:36that game, but the point is Sony got involved at some point and saw the game all the way
04:40through to finance it.
04:42So there was some commitment with that studio itself, Firewalk.
04:46So that's still a team of talented people that you could, in theory, do something with,
04:50but the point I made at the time on ClickR3 was, okay, you let them do, say, another game,
04:56this demon is going to chase them, and is that really something where you want to go
05:00five, six, seven years, then Firewalk announces another game, and the same thing happens,
05:09Whatever this new game is, you've got headlines, YouTube thumbnails, the Kotaku article, IGN
05:15stuff left and right, because that's an easy headline to write, the Concord Studio, here's
05:20their new game, and that's the same insurmountable challenge that the studio now has to face.
05:26Even if you rename them, it's still the same location, same studio, same team members.
05:31We all, I think, know how that might go down, and I think that was another option Sony considered,
05:36and so that probably didn't play out all that well, either.
05:40Maybe retaining that staff, moving them around, if you're going to dissolve the studio, I
05:43think that would maybe be the best course of action, sounds like that may or may not
05:46be happening here.
05:48We'll talk more about any sort of details that are cleared up on LTPS this coming Friday,
05:54but they could be a support studio as well.
05:56The problem with doing support studios, that's not what all these people signed up for when
05:59they started working at the studio, and it just might not really fit into the pipeline
06:03for what Sony is doing across all these different games and everything, I mean, there's just
06:06a logistic issue with signing all those people and the entire studio into a support role.
06:12This was, I hate to say it, probably the best, I don't want to say best, but it was probably
06:19one of the more viable options from SIE's point of view, which I still don't really
06:23think is great news.
06:24I don't want to see anybody lose their jobs, no matter what the actual circumstance was.
06:28Now, Neon Koi, though, yeah, this one is pretty fascinating in that this was Sony's, I guess
06:36from the outside looking in, they're most committed to finally shipping a competent
06:39mobile game, since the complaint I've always had with Sony and mobile games is that they
06:43seem to throw a bunch of different IP and things at the wall to see what sticks, and
06:48they'll always contract this stuff out, obviously, or have a, there's some studios that are well-known
06:53that have done some of these mobile versions as well, like Run Sackboy Run and everything,
06:57but it's just still a bunch of things that I think don't really resonate or land with
07:02the mobile audience in a big way, and certainly not the way Sony expects them to, so it was
07:06actually, in a way, encouraging, now, I'm not a mobile person, really, I play a lot
07:10of Pokemon Go, but that's, the IP's carrying that game, not really a mobile person, but,
07:15you know, following and analyzing and covering the PlayStation business, I would love to
07:18see them actually make a genuine attempt at investing in that space where I think you
07:23really do have to go about it in a different way.
07:25This is the first time where Sony was seemingly doing that, which is establishing a completely
07:30separate PlayStation Studios mobile division, hiring specialized staff that have been in
07:35mobile for a long time, appointing the former Apple arcade boss, Nicholas Sebastiani, then
07:41they left, the studio, actually, that they acquired were originally called Savage Game
07:46Studios, then they were renamed, you had some founders leaving, I think, and a number of
07:50key staff leaving, so it sounds like that project maybe was going through some turmoil
07:55and maybe they weren't really hitting some big milestone builds, and so there's some
07:59issues going on with that game, clearly, to where we are now.
08:02We really never even saw what that game was or what it was going to be, especially because
08:08like in today's environment, a lot of mobile games will have that synergy with console
08:13versions as well, kind of like a Genshin Impact or a Fortnite or something, right, where you've
08:18got an in-game economy that you can, and this cross-play, cross-progression you can do between
08:23console and PC, so I thought maybe that's what they're doing with this game, but that's
08:27just not the case.
08:28Well, console PC mobile, I should say, since we're, again, not going to see this game,
08:32but Neon Koi was their first mobile studio acquisition for this newly established PlayStation
08:39Studios mobile division, and now that's not going forward, so it sounds like they're still
08:44committed to that, but it sounds like it's now very far away for whatever they end up
08:48doing with their mobile efforts.
08:50I guess if they are, you know, looking to have some studios in-house, now they're back
08:54down to zero, so they might, I guess, continue acquiring studios?
09:00I don't know, I mean, that was also during like a time where the studio was on a merger
09:05and acquisition spree, you know, money was cheap back then, so it's kind of insane waking
09:14up to this, to have two of these announcements, and Firewalk, I think, was, well, this was
09:20probably a very recent decision, too, given that leading up to this, we just had no indication
09:25from anybody chasing down the story or something, usually we can figure out exactly what is
09:31probably going to end up happening, but in this case, it sounds like it was probably
09:34a pretty recent decision, a lot of the existing Firewalk staff were already in a position
09:40of like, well, I think the studio's going to get closed down, I might as well stick
09:43it out to the very end, and then collect some kind of severance, which is now likely what's
09:47going to be playing out, but, yeah, with that said, wanted to get a very quick conversation
09:52out, we'll talk more on LTPS when this news sort of, I guess, the dust settles, I'm sure
09:58we'll get more details as this stuff wraps up, and we'll also be having a ClickR3 episode
10:02fairly soon as well, so me and John will be talking more about this, so, having said that,
10:06thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you all in my next video.
10:09You take it easy.